Honeywell17

I have come to the end of a very successful and first season at The Quakers, which we will now continue a division higher with the prospect of a new stadium. We came top in our league, with the most wins and least conceded. Resulting in a massive lead and a massive goal difference. We also won the FA Vase, contested by teams in 14 leagues, strangely enough our league had the most teams in the later stages. As we get nearer to our goal, hopefully finance will improve and I will be allowed some influence in the transfer market. But it’s not just our lowly league I’ll be talking about, as the english footballing scene threw up some surprises.

I of course will be going through the senior and youth team performances. But also; analysis of tactics, stats, awards, other competitions, finances and whatever else I can be bothered to write about.

Season Summary

• Got promoted to Northern Premier League 1st Division North
• Won the FA Vase
• Dominated the league to expectations
• Improved infrastructure and new stadium

Senior Team – League Results

The First you might notice is that we lost only four times this season, but the majority of the losses came towards the end of the season, this could be down to the massive amount of fixtures and bad fitness, but also maybe tactical mishaps. Our best run of form was between the first and second loss, when we went 22 games unbeaten. Whitley Bay annoyed me the most, because despite much better performances each time they managed to do the double on us and I will make sure I destroy them in the pre-season. Overall normally we were statistically better and had so much more in the way of shots, I think its poor finishing that caused us not to win every game by a landslide.

Senior Team – League Table

I think we were declared winners of the league 4 or 5 games still to play, this gives you a feel of our dominance. Our goal difference was almost double that of our nearest challenger. We won the league by 18 points totaling 106 points and Whitley Bays 88 is still very impressive. We came narrowly close to scoring the most, but we did hold up in a defense that began to lack in depth towards the end of the season, conceding 37 in 46 games, a credit to our influential vice captain and keeper. Only the top team gets promoted and this carries through to the next through leagues, so if we don’t dominate we could spend two seasons each time.

Senior Team – Past Positions

We have made the top spot our own since the second game of the season, our first run of games was a good amount of straight wins. This secured us there, meaning a draw or loss didn’t cause any danger. Whitley Bays position has overall been very good, but they have only pulled into second towards the end of the season, they came far to late to challenge us.

Senior Team – Cup Results

The board expectation was that we must reach the semi-final of the FA Vase, we did this and proceeded further. These cup games were a lot tougher than the league games and there were plenty of times we almost got knocked out. The board didn’t really give one about the challenge Cup, for our level we proceeded quite far and at the point we were knocked out we were the lowest ranked team. We then beat league rivals Hebburn Town in a more equal game to take home the “Vase”.

Senior Team – Cup Final Rounds

I put this in to highlight the dominance of our league and ask the question, Is our league the strongest of the 14 competing? I say this because a quarter of the teams into the fifth round were from our league, when statistically there should be only one or two. Also the fact two of our leagues teams met in the final might also suggest this. However, as I pointed out, these games were a lot tougher, but this could be down to a desire to win a trophy and get some glory.

Senior Team – Cup Final Stats

A lot of the stats were quite equal, apart from the ones that mattered which we were a bit ahead on. I felt we controlled the game, but after the penalty they were a lot better and I had to defend to hold the lead. Both performances really were quite poor, no one stood out, it wasn’t a classic. Possession also shows the evenness of the game, 50/50. We always do better shot wise win or lose, so I expected that.

Senior Team – Cup Line-ups

Most our team were in the high 6′s which gives me the impression they were bog standard and didn’t do a lot. The only 7+ were from goal-scorers, which is pretty poor.

Senior Team – Squad

Our only player who played every game all season was Chris Porter the keeper, a total of 59 games. This shows how much we had to play, sometimes three times a week, which may have led to some poorer games at the end. I have highlighted the good performances in terms of; Goals, assists and rating. Dan Smith was a favourite for me as he had 13 assists from left back. Adam Main got over 20 goals and had injuries so he had a great season, I hope to sign him permanently. Paul Hutchinson was amazing at scoring from centre back, mainly from corners and penalties, but great non the less. On the other side of the coin, Mark Gillies was very bad, he got sent off a few times and cost us some easy results he didn’t play after that.

Senior Team – Stats

For some more in depth stuff here are some stats, I don’t really want to explain them, but they’re there if you fancy a look.

Senior Team – Tactical Analysis

I used 4 tactics this season, but it only has our tactics from the last 50, the missing one is the 4-4-2. The 4-3-3 is my current tactic, this has been the best for scoring and average for scoring, in the summer I will try and find an even ground between all three, to maximise success. They all had flat back fours and no wide midfielders, this pattern will probably follow through my time at Darlo.

Senior Team – Current Tactic

I didn’t really develop this to much and it was created just to have back-ups, its proved to be my favourite at the moment and we’ll see how it goes in the pre-season. I have put up the screen shot, like stats, so if you’re interested you can take whatever from it.

League – Player Stats

All the good stats involve at least one of our players, I would have liked more, but performances slipped towards the end as I’ve mentioned. Adam Main was joint top scorer and got 22 league goals. Paul Hutchinson and Adam Main both did well in terms of Man of the Match. Hutchinson also had one of the best average ratings, whilst Dan Smith had on of the highest assist counts.

League – Team Stats

As I have already goon on about, our goals for and against have been brilliant. Also our recent form has been pretty dandy too. This doesn’t portray the dominant side we have been, but I am not too bothered.

Reserves – Results

I didn’t have a reserve squad really, at this point in the season I needed some depth and players weren’t fit so I have a short period of games to get everyone in shape.

Youth – Squad

My youth squad has got a Little out of hand after I left picking the new players to the head of Youth, so my theory is that if I book too many games it will utilise all of them. You can see a lot of potential and only a few bad ‘uns. So its all going well on this front.

Youth – Results

They managed to pull out some historic draws and even a win, I’m sure as we climb the ranks we’ll win more until we get in a competition and friendlies aren’t necessary. We had to play a lot of teams over and over again as there weren’t a lot to choose from.

Other Results

Premier League

• 1) ECL Chelsea
• 2) ECL Manchester City
• 3) ECL Liverpool
• 4) ECL Manchester Utd
• 5) EL Stoke City
• 6) EL Arsenal
• 18) R Sunderland
• 19) R Wigan Athletic
• 20) R West bromwich Albion

Wolves, Blackburn and Watford (play off) are promoted

FA Cup

(EL) Everton 2-1 Chelsea

League Cup

Manchester City 2-1 Manchester Utd

Champions League

Manchester City 2-1 AC Milan

Europa League

Benfica 1-2 Bayer 04 Leverkusen

Thank you for reading,

Please please please VOTE and COMMENT, your views are gladly appreciated

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I don’t really want to put up one tactic and just discuss that. I want to talk about different kind of aspects I use when building my tactics up. Mainly in different sections and philosophies.

I want to start by introducing how I approach games and the system I use. I started the season with a standard 4-4-2, but since then have moved on to two different variations on a 4-3-3. One with wingers so 4-3-2-1 and the other with central midfielders and strikers. These have all worked well with me at Darlington, the central tactic is good against bigger teams where you’re going to do badly with possession, the other is good for dominating.

Attacking Set-ups

Whatever attacking set-up I use, I have to use wingers or at least wing-backs. I do this because as-well as supporting they can score them selves, so in an attacking move up to four players have a very good chance of scoring. It also means chances come from all areas of the pitch. You could use wide midfielders as wingers, this is good in a tough game, but not one of my favourite tactics.

When you opt to have only one striker as I currently do with Darlington, I find it important to give the two wingers very different roles; one is the standard supporting winger who gets a lot of assists, the other is the inside forward, who acts as another striker and supports, thus gets a lot of goals and a fair amount of assists. The striker can have a wide amount of roles, I find advanced forward and poacher are most effective. If you’re a world class side more commanding roles like complete forward can be used.

If you don’t find it necessary to devote so many players to the midfield or defence you can expand on my previous point. This is a little bit different. Now there are two strikers you don’t need to have the wingers as inside forwards, one striker slots up and the other down. Meaning the wingers can sit on the sides and put balls in. This could only really work if your one of the stronger sides in the league.

Midfield

I normally use three systems in the midfield

• CM – CM – CM
• CM-CM
• CM-DM-CM

The first one is normally used with the three strikers, whereas the three in the middle tactics goes well with the wingers. At the moment I’m using the 3 CM’s, but if you have the players or need to be more defensive the DM role is very good, I used it at Northampton. You must always have the standard central mid, some sort of playmakers and I usually have a box to box, to connect up the play.

Denfence

My defence is very standard and there are only two different ways I use it. I will always have 4 at the back so LB-CB-CB-RB. The centre backs will generally always be centre backs, but sometimes limited defenders based on their best position, but also if you lack defensive support from the midfield. If I am using wide midfielders or wingers I will have full-backs. But If I am using a central based tactic I will uses either wing-backs to act as those missing wingers or full backs set as wingers.

I havent given my tactic or just explained that, I have shown my ideas as I fell the best tactic is one built based on the squad and your individual philosophies. Hopefully this helps

Thanks for reading

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When I posted last I was unbeaten following a good start to the campaign. This proved to be a bad omen as I then lost a game soon after, but after that things went brilliantly. We remain in both The FA Vase and The northern league Challenge Cup. I think I can win the Vase, however the Cup will be harder with much higher division teams competing, but not impossible. I have been using a system with mainly 2 tactics and a third backup tactic. The large amount of fixtures is doing no good for the team, a lot of the players need a rest. Also The make-shift youth team finally won a game and there are some real exciting talents there.

So I will discussing the normal fixtures and competition results. Also some stats and star players

league – Results

There were some cup fixtures as-well but I will talk about them further on. The majority of the games we comfortably controlled and had plenty of shot, we didn’t score as much as i’d like probably down to the finishing attributes of my strikers. Towards the end we have sometimes struggled to control some games, and it has been very tight. Hopefully this is a blip in form. Reed cards have also been quite damaging and the culprit has been demoted, although we only had 10 men we managed to come back from 2-1 down at Team Northumbria.

League – Table

We are in first place and have been since the second game of the season. We have won the most and lost the least. We aren’t running away with the league, but are in a comfortable position, however Hebburn Town are closing in. In terms of goals conceded we are amongst the best, where we are the best in goals scored, resulting in a very good goal difference. We are almost halfway through and still have to play two teams we haven’t faced yet.

Cup – Fixtures

I just want to clarify the clubs who compete in these trophies first.

FA VASE

This is mainly an amateur tournament with some semi-pro teams competing and is based around the Regional and County Primary Leagues. This is made up of 14 leagues, so I think we have a very good chance of winning

Northern League Challenge Cup

The Isthmian league, The northern League and The Southern League all run a league Cup. So their leagues are the top contenders in the competition. They league levels included are; Northern Premier League (1 league), Northern Premier League North/South (2), the Regional and County (14). So it will be a challenge to win and not one of my targets, but you never know.

Our first two games in the Northern League Challenge Cup went well and were quite easy games, due to the fact they were at our skill level. Our next game is against a higher league opponent but I think we’ll scrape through.

Funnily enough our FA VASE games have been a lot tighter and some times in danger of losing. Maybe this is due to the fact each and every team competing could win. The next opponent I must be weary of, but should win.

Senior Team Performance

I have put my senior squad in order of average rating throughout the season. One of the stand out things is the great amount of potential, however in most places thats all it is and it needs a lot of work. Although we have almost a full 11 of quality players, most of them do very well. In terms of team goals we are brilliant, only 3 players haven’t got an assist, even our goalie has got one! Our top Scorer Main will easily get 20, unless he gets some mad injury.

Key players

Amar Purewal

Last season Amar was playing for Durham and he scored 22 goals in 34 games, thats very impressive. Although he is one of the leagues top scorers, he isn’t really playing that kind of role, he is more of an attacking inside forward  on the wing. It’s not his strongest position, but he plays best there from what I’ve seen. He is our highest valued player I think, at £3K, in a league where the average is about £100. he is also quite young and expect him to stay at the club for a bit while we climb the leagues.

Adam Main

At the moment Main is the league top scorer with 12 goals, whilst others including Amar have 9. He is on loan from conference side Workington, he is out of contract soon and I would love to sign him, however unless we are allowed to pay more than £20 per week, we’re never getting him. Whenever he is fit to play he always makes the squad, but currently needs a rest.

Chris Porter

My marker of a good season for a keeper is to have conceded less goals than games played. So far our player/coach is living up to this and long may it continue. Also to be getting 7+ ratings consistently is brilliant for this player who is probably at his prime. He is one of our only players to be ever present this season.

Thanks for reading,

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Now when I say unbeaten I mean competitively, as we had a quite dodgy friendly loss, more on that later. In my first few months I have brought in over 20 players and effectively created a youth team. We are having to live up to a massive reputation and are expected to win each and every game, which is harder than you’d think. I have also discovered that the best scouts I could get (6 rated on both) are outrageously bad at scouting.

Also I have a new header as you may have noticed so check that out…

The Results

Our pre-season was not very long due to the fact we will be playing so many games this season, It started a bit earlier. So I squeezed in 3 games, one again higher league opponents and the other two versus local teams.  We had a very good victory against Blyth Spartans in which we were expected to lose. Then we had a very strong performance against local rivals, Chester-Le-Street and then we had a blip in our form losing to a weaker team. Our results have either been very confident or scrappy with only just better position. Whereas the West Auckland game was a very good performance, where we didn’t take our changes. I started of using a 4-4-2, however despite good results, a 4-3-3 suits the team better and provides very good results too.

League Table

As widely expected we are top of the league. We have the most points at 16 from 6 games, a clear 2 point lead over the next team Shildon AFC, we also have a game in hand. We are the only team unbeaten and have also won the most games. We have scored the most goals and have the best goal difference, whilst we are one off the best defensive record (this belongs to sunderland Ryhope). As this is the lowest league in an edited set up, no one gets relegated, but in reality i think promotion/relegation is based on applications and winning it a few times. Only one team get promoted, so we must win. Also we are being drawn in the first round of the northern league challenge cup soon.

The Team

despite the quality largely improving Dan Smith still remains my best player, I also have a lot of bad players who signed whilst I was finding it hard to get players. Mainly because we had so few players and signing the greyed out players was an easy option, over time I found a precious few who would play fro £20 per week. I do go on about having a very low wage budget, but the truth is we signed the most players in england, this you will see when I discuss my youth team. There are 3 5 star players with greyed stars, these are better than the youths and older, but they are more depth than anything. Getting a large squad is very important in this league, down to the intense amount of games.

Youth Team

This youth squad may not compete in a competition, but they have a constant stream of friendlies lined up by me. I signed them from my terrible scouts and a trial day, I admit I may of gone over the top, but we can either use them in the future or profit off them. A good £100 each, in this division thats actually quite a lot….

Thanks for reading,

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All that follow my blog will remember that I started a Wigan story, this I have ended. Not because I was doing badly, I r was doing rather well, its because I wasn’t in to it. Ever since the end of Northampton, I haven’t really become attached, I have had some fun with Middlesbrough, Arsenal and the Israel premier league, but alas not the same. But now I have fond a suitable challenge and one that I really think I can go with for well over 10 seasons…..

Darlington

This is a team that were once in what is now known as the npower championship, albeit in the 1920′s. however they have reached highs of the 3rd tier as recently as the 90′s, but most followers of football will know them as a conference/league 2 side. But last season due to financial difficulties they were removed from the conference premier, turned down by the Northern premier league and then soon found themselves in the Northern league, with the likes of Billingham Synthonia, Guisborough Town and South Shields, not macclesfield and Newport County. For a club with a 125 year plus history, this isn’t good and I’m going to sort it out.

The Club

Darlo have a very nice stadium and its called Heritage park. It holds 25,000 but I believe it is restricted to 10,000. On the game it says they play at heritage park so Im not sure about the situation, regarding the stadium. Both Darlo and Hartlepool have always benefited from boro loans and I hope I can too, or at least a Hartlepool loan.

The database

Now you may have realised I am using a external database and thus feel obliged to give a link. It basically add full competition names, several lower trophies and 3 tiers of football which all contain lots of leagues.

http://www.fmscout.com/a-fm13-data-england-level-9-plus-real-club-and-competition-names.html

Now to my actual management and team!

My targets;

• First of all get promotion
• Mainly just build a team I can work with as we progress

What I have to work with;

I can manage a starting eleven just, but I will be extending the size of the squad by at least double. there are two really good players, but at this level its so easy to find players that good, so there rating may decrease as i improve the team. Also I can get rid of the really bad ones because only a few have proper contracts. One of my philosophies is to keep an english team english, no problem at this level, but come the premier league, its quite hard.

I will get back to you in a few months game time,

wish me luck!

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